Feb 16, 2010

To know God’s truth was Levi W. Hancock’s desire from childhood. Once he found the gospel, he followed the Lord’s prophet no matter the sacrifice.

Levi Ward Hancock was a bodyguard to the Prophet Joseph Smith (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), marched with the Mormon Battalion, was one of the first Seventies of the LDS Church, is listed in the Doctrine & Covenants of the LDS Church, and surprisingly is my ancestor.

I recently decided to upload my family tree to Ancestry.com, and was pleasantly surprised to see the many improvements offered. First, I know Ancestry.com would search records for you, but I was amazed how many Leaves ("hits") it is finding! I have 5,298 family and ancestors in my tree (most of which were handed down to me from my Mom), and Ancestry.com has over 82 Leafs for me to research. This is coming in handy, as I have mostly been researching first source records to document my Mom's (and her family's) research.

I've been using Ancestry.com for many years, and have loved finding draft cards of my ancestors. However, with the new "Leaf" feature, I discovered that my grandfather, William Franklin Butler III, had to register for the draft (which I was unaware). Here's his draft registration card (World War I Draft Registration Cards 1917-1918):

Tip: To preview the image better, just click on it to enlarge it. If you want a copy, right click on the image and save a copy to your computer. Enjoy!